Sir: Your essay about the penny and the nickel (“Where We Went Wrong with Pennies,” Apr. 27) was heartening as far as it went, but it did not go nearly far enough. Stopping the minting of pennies was a good first step, and stopping (as you suggested) the minting of nickels would be a good second step. We must not, however, be afraid to take the third step, and the fourth, and the steps after that, canceling dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and all the denominations of paper currency: in other words, all the forms of exchange collectively described as “cash.”

As president of the Steamfitters & Phrenologists Federal Savings Bank, I believe I speak with some authority on matters of money. Cash transactions, to be blunt, are nothing more than theft. When a payment is made in cash, it enriches no one but the recipient of the cash. No banker receives any remuneration from the transaction. We are cut out entirely. Have your readers ever stopped to think that, when they make a payment in cash, they are taking food out of the mouths of my wife and my children and my mistress?

My father, Algernon Steamfitters, worked tirelessly to make sure that every transaction that went through his bank accumulated a fee, even if it were only two or three per cent, because he was a true patriot, and he was inflexibly opposed to socialist giveaway programs like cash transactions. It was a proud moment for him when he persuaded the county government, merely by force of logic, to stop accepting cash payments for services like registering deeds and accepting bribes. I have built on the firm foundation he left me, and I am proud to say that I have found opportunities for fees my father never even dreamed of.

I am a charitable man at heart. I believe that most ordinary people, when they make an underhanded payment in cash at the supermarket or the massage parlor, are thinking only of their own narrow self-interest, not actively trying to undermine the capitalist economy. Nevertheless, they must be educated to understand that they are playing into the hands of our enemies. We cannot have a strong nation without a strong banking sector, and we cannot have a strong banking sector if people keep finding ways to weasel out of paying bankers their due on every financial transaction.

But education can do only so much. Even if most people are fundamentally honest, some are not. There will always be those who will take advantage of the loophole left open by cash transactions, and they will continue to press that advantage until cash itself ceases to exist. Therefore I say to the governing powers: You have won the first victory. Now continue the battle until we have won the war against cash.

Sincerely,
Robert Z. Steamfitters,
President,
Steamfitters & Phrenologists Federal Savings Bank